AWS Launches Infrastructure Region in Malaysia

Rhea-AI Summary

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has launched its Asia Pacific (Malaysia) Region, offering customers greater choice for running workloads and securely storing data in Malaysia. This expansion reflects AWS's long-term commitment to meeting high demand for cloud services in the region. AWS plans to invest more than $6.2 billion (approx. MYR 29.2 billion) and support an average of over 3,500 full-time equivalent jobs annually in Malaysia through 2038.

The new region consists of three Availability Zones, providing high availability and fault tolerance. It is expected to add approximately $12.1 billion (MYR 57.3 billion) to Malaysia's GDP. Active customers in Malaysia include Bursa Malaysia, CelcomDigi, GX Bank Berhad, PayNet, and PETRONAS, among others.

AWS continues to invest in upskilling Malaysia's workforce, having trained over 100,000 individuals in cloud skills since 2017. The company is also committed to sustainability, aiming for net-zero carbon across its operations by 2040 and water positivity by 2030.

Positive

• AWS plans to invest $6.2 billion in Malaysia through 2038
• The new AWS Region is expected to add $12.1 billion to Malaysia's GDP
• AWS will support an average of over 3,500 full-time equivalent jobs annually in Malaysia
• The new region consists of three Availability Zones, enhancing reliability and fault tolerance
• AWS has trained over 100,000 individuals in Malaysia in cloud skills since 2017

Negative

• None.

Tech Expert

The launch of AWS's new infrastructure region in Malaysia marks a significant milestone in the country's digital transformation journey. This $6.2 billion investment demonstrates AWS's commitment to the Malaysian market and will likely accelerate cloud adoption across various sectors.

Key benefits include:

• Enhanced data sovereignty and compliance capabilities for local businesses
• Reduced latency for end-users, improving application performance
• Increased availability of advanced AWS services like AI and ML to Malaysian companies
• Potential economic boost, with an estimated $12.1 billion addition to Malaysia's GDP and creation of 3,500 full-time equivalent jobs annually

This development positions Malaysia as a growing tech hub in Southeast Asia, potentially attracting more foreign investment and tech talent to the region. However, local businesses must be prepared to upskill their workforce to fully leverage these new cloud capabilities.

Financial Analyst

AWS's expansion into Malaysia represents a strategic move to capture the growing cloud market in Southeast Asia. For Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), this investment could yield significant long-term returns as businesses in the region increasingly adopt cloud technologies.

Key financial implications:

• Potential for increased revenue from the Asia-Pacific region, which accounted for 13% of AWS's net sales in Q2 2023
• Long-term commitment through 2038 suggests confidence in Malaysia's economic growth
• Initial capital expenditure may impact short-term profitability, but should drive long-term value

Investors should monitor AWS's market share growth in Malaysia and the broader ASEAN region, as well as the adoption rate of higher-margin services like AI and ML. This expansion could strengthen AWS's competitive position against rivals like Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud in the fast-growing Southeast Asian market.

Market Research Analyst

The launch of AWS's Malaysia Region reflects the rapidly growing demand for cloud services in Southeast Asia. This move is likely to intensify competition in the region's cloud market, potentially leading to more competitive pricing and innovative offerings from cloud providers.

Key market trends:

• Increasing digital transformation across industries, particularly in financial services, telecommunications and public sector
• Rising demand for data localization and sovereignty solutions
• Growing interest in AI and ML capabilities among enterprises

AWS's presence may accelerate cloud adoption among Malaysian SMEs and startups, potentially fostering a more vibrant tech ecosystem. However, challenges remain, including the need for widespread cloud skills development and potential regulatory hurdles in sensitive sectors. Competitors may need to reassess their Southeast Asian strategies in light of AWS's expanded presence in the region.

The AWS Asia Pacific (Malaysia) Region gives customers more choice to run workloads and securely store data in Malaysia while serving end users with even lower latency

New Region reflects AWS’s long-term commitment to meeting high demand for cloud services in Malaysia and across Asia Pacific

AWS plans to invest more than $6.2 billion (approx. MYR 29.2 billion) and support an average of more than 3,500 full-time equivalent jobs annually in Malaysia through 2038

Active customers in Malaysia include Bursa Malaysia, CelcomDigi, GX Bank Berhad, PayNet, Petroliam Nasional Berhad, the Department of Broadcasting Malaysia, Tenaga Nasional Berhad, and many others innovating on AWS

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon Web Services (AWS), an Amazon.com, Inc. company (NASDAQ: AMZN), today announced the launch of the AWS Asia Pacific (Malaysia) Region. Starting today, developers, startups, entrepreneurs, and enterprises, as well as government, education, and nonprofit organizations, will have greater choice for running their applications and serving end users from AWS data centers located in Malaysia. As part of its long-term commitment, AWS is planning to invest an estimated $6.2 billion (approximately MYR 29.2 billion) in Malaysia through 2038. For more information about AWS Global Infrastructure, visit aws.amazon.com/about-aws/global-infrastructure.

The construction and operation of the new AWS Region is estimated to add approximately $12.1 billion (MYR 57.3 billion) to Malaysia’s gross domestic product (GDP) and will support an average of more than 3,500 full-time equivalent jobs at external businesses annually through 2038. These jobs, including construction, facility maintenance, engineering, telecommunications, and others within the country’s broader economy, will be part of the AWS supply chain in Malaysia.

“The launch of an AWS infrastructure Region in Malaysia provides access to new and emerging technology for Malaysian entities and businesses of all sizes, boosting our country’s capabilities for digital innovation,” said Tengku Zafrul, Minister of Investment Trade & Industry (MITI). “This milestone is a significant step towards fulfilling the vision of Malaysia’s New Industrial Master Plan 2030 to build a highly skilled, innovative, prosperous, inclusive, and sustainable economy. We recognize the transformative power of digitalization, cloud computing and AI as key drivers in Malaysia’s effort to become a manufacturing and services hub within Asia. As the largest investment made by an international technology company in Malaysia, the AWS infrastructure Region will help ensure Malaysia remains competitive on the global stage.”

“The new AWS Region in Malaysia enables organizations across Asia Pacific to unlock the full potential of the world’s most extensive and reliable cloud, helping customers deploy advanced applications with a broad set of AWS technologies like AI and ML,” said Prasad Kalyanaraman, vice president of Infrastructure Services at AWS. “Malaysia’s rapidly growing digital economy requires access to secure, resilient, and sustainable cloud infrastructure. With today’s launch, AWS is proud to support Malaysia’s digital transformation and help accelerate its role as a regional hub for AI.”

With the launch of the AWS Asia Pacific (Malaysia) Region, AWS has 108 Availability Zones across 34 geographic regions, with announced plans to launch 18 more Availability Zones and six more AWS Regions in Mexico, New Zealand, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, Thailand, and the AWS European Sovereign Cloud. AWS Regions are composed of Availability Zones that place infrastructure in separate and distinct geographic locations. The AWS Asia Pacific (Malaysia) Region consists of three Availability Zones located far enough from each other to support customers’ business continuity, but near enough to provide low latency for high availability applications that use multiple Availability Zones. Each Availability Zone has independent power, cooling, and physical security, and is connected through redundant, ultra-low-latency networks. AWS customers focused on high availability can design their applications to run in multiple Availability Zones to achieve even greater fault tolerance.

AWS offers the broadest and deepest portfolio of services, including analytics, compute, database, IoT, generative AI, ML, mobile services, storage, and other cloud technologies. Customers from startups and enterprises to public sector organizations and nonprofits will be able to use advanced technologies from the world’s leading cloud provider to drive innovation, meet data residency preferences, achieve lower latency, and serve demand for cloud services in Malaysia and across Asia Pacific.

Customers and AWS Partners welcome the AWS Region in Malaysia

Organizations in Malaysia are among the millions of active customers using AWS in more than 190 countries around the world. Enterprises in Malaysia choose AWS to innovate, drive cost efficiencies, and accelerate time to market. Malaysian customers using AWS include Astro Malaysia Holdings Berhad, Axiata Group, Bank Islam Malaysia, Bursa Malaysia, CelcomDigi, the Department of Broadcasting Malaysia (RTM), GX Bank Berhad (GXBank), Johor Corporation, PayNet, and Petroliam Nasional Berhad (PETRONAS). Malaysian public sector customers use AWS to help drive cost savings and better serve local citizens. These customers include Asia Pacific University (APU) of Technology & Innovation, Beeducation Adventures Sdn. Bhd. (BeED), Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM), Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia (MOHE), Pos Malaysia, and Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB). Malaysian startups and small businesses, including Aerodyne, Carsome, QRRA, and Tapway, are building their businesses on AWS to rapidly scale nationally in the Asia Pacific region and around the world.

Bursa Malaysia, Malaysia’s national exchange, has recently launched the innovative Centralized Sustainability Intelligence (CSI) platform on AWS to support Malaysia’s transition to a lower carbon economy. “Bursa Malaysia welcomes the launch of AWS cloud infrastructure in Malaysia as a positive step forward for the country’s digital economy, bringing continued innovation to drive capital markets growth,” said Datuk Muhamad Umar Swift, CEO at Bursa Malaysia. “Our collaboration with AWS to launch a CSI platform gives Malaysian companies and their suppliers an impetus to standardize ESG reporting and decarbonize their supply chain. Cloud computing will continue to contribute to better sustainability practices among Malaysian companies and have a positive impact on the broader ecosystem.”

CelcomDigi is a leading telecommunications provider in Malaysia that is using Amazon Bedrock to access a variety of high-performing foundation and purpose-built large language models, enabling an enterprise-wide AI sandbox for secure, rapid innovation across its consumer and corporate businesses. “The new AWS Region in Malaysia presents exciting opportunities for CelcomDigi as we accelerate our transformation to be a leading telco-tech company,” said Datuk Idham Nawawi, CEO at CelcomDigi. “With the support of AWS infrastructure and AI services to power our business support systems and consumer applications, we strive to improve operational efficiencies and deliver better experiences to our customers. We look forward to strengthening our collaboration with AWS, anchored by a shared commitment in driving innovation and building Malaysia’s digital ecosystem.”

ELSA Corp. (ELSA) uses speech technology and AI to help non-native English learners speak more confidently and fluently through its app, ELSA Speak, which is used in over 100 countries. “Our collaboration with AWS has been instrumental in our work to help over 50 million English learners improve their speaking skills and has helped drive our global market expansion,” said Will Polese, vice president, Revenue at ELSA. “With AWS's flexible configurations for compute, database, and storage of large volumes of real-time data, ELSA can effectively manage a surge in user growth and maintain high levels of user satisfaction. The new AWS Region in Malaysia will further enhance our capabilities, enabling us to deliver low latency, reliable, high-performing solutions to our clients and end learners. AWS’s investment underscores its commitment to supporting the digital economy and our efforts to improve inclusivity through technology."

GXBank is Malaysia's first digital bank with a mission to empower every Malaysian to be financially resilient. "Building on AWS, we were operationally ready to launch GXBank within 16 months, serving over 750k customers with 13 million transactions in just eight months," said Pei-Si Lai, CEO at GXBank. "We are delighted to welcome the AWS Region in Malaysia, which will provide Malaysian businesses, entrepreneurs, and SMEs access to scalable and secure digital infrastructure to help them deliver seamless customer experiences. We are proud of our journey with AWS to help democratize access to financial services and foster financial inclusion across ASEAN, underpinned by advanced technology."

PETRONAS is a global energy and solutions provider with a presence in over 50 countries. It uses AWS for new and existing solutions such as Malaysia’s first e-wallet (SETEL) for purchasing fuel and a cloud-based logistics solution and services platform (STEAR) for the offshore industry. “Digital technologies play an important role in all our businesses. Cloud services enable our work in artificial intelligence, IoT, advanced analytics, robotics, and data governance,” said Ir. Mohd Yusri Mohamed Yusof, senior vice president, Project Delivery & Technology, PETRONAS. “AWS’s investment in Malaysia will facilitate our data residency needs, improve performance, and elevate the country’s digital capabilities. I am excited by the possibilities this investment can create for Malaysia to become a regional leader in the digital economy.”

RTM, the national public broadcaster in Malaysia, uses AWS to build and scale innovative applications for its millions of customers with its digital media delivery platform, RTMKlik. “The launch of the AWS Region in Malaysia means being able to leverage AWS generative AI services like Bedrock to bring transformative innovation to RTMKlik and tailor our content to align with the viewing preferences of each RTMKlik user,” said Datuk Suhaimi Sulaiman, director general at RTM. “AWS has helped us enhance the inclusivity of RTMKlik, providing value-added services such as live captions to ensure our hearing-impaired audience can better understand and follow live broadcasts. Advancements like these elevate the user experience and help us engage with a broad audience. AWS has been pivotal in making RTMKlik a more dynamic, accessible, and user-centric platform.”

TNB, a leading utility company in Asia, serves over 9.5 million customers across commercial, industrial, and residential sectors in Malaysia. In collaboration with AWS, TNB is accelerating its digital transformation to enhance customer experience and develop innovative smart energy solutions. “As part of our 10-year Reimagining TNB Plan, we are collaborating with AWS to build digital capabilities and infrastructure that support decarbonization efforts across our business entities,” said Azlan Ahmad, chief information officer at TNB. “Digital solutions are key to modernizing the grid and expanding renewable energy capacity, while also empowering our customers through advanced digital platforms. Through collaborations like this, TNB is driving the future of sustainable and efficient energy, ensuring we meet growing energy demands and lead the way in the energy transition.”

The AWS Partner Network (APN) includes tens of thousands of independent software vendors (ISVs) and systems integrators (SIs) around the world. AWS Partners build innovative solutions and services on AWS, and the APN helps by providing business, technical, marketing, and go-to-market support to customers. AWS ISVs, technology partners, SIs, and consulting partners help enterprise and public sector customers migrate to AWS, deploy mission-critical applications, and provide a full range of monitoring, automation, and management services for customers’ cloud environments. AWS Partners in Malaysia include Accenture, Aerodyne, Axrail, CelcomDigi, Deloitte, eCloudvalley, Exabytes, G-AsiaPacific, GHL, Kyndryl, Maxis, Radmik Solutions, Silverlake Axis, SoftwareOne, Tapway, Uberfusion, and VSTECS. For the full list of AWS Partners, visit aws.amazon.com/partners.

G-AsiaPacific is a fully integrated cloud advisory company, based in Malaysia and operating across Asia Pacific, and a Consulting Partner in the AWS Partner Network. “The new AWS Region in Malaysia presents a fantastic opportunity for us to build even better service offerings for our customers across the public sector, financial services, education, and beyond,” said Mark Goh, CEO and co-founder at G-AsiaPacific. “With AWS, we can help our customers establish critical data governance and compliance policies, while meeting local data residency and security requirements. AWS’s advanced technologies are helping our customers experiment and iterate faster at lower cost, accelerating innovation across increasingly diverse industries. We plan to nurture more highly skilled cloud talent to better leverage the latest AWS capabilities and drive growth in Malaysia’s vibrant digital economy.”

Tapway, a homegrown Malaysian startup and a leading AI solution provider in Southeast Asia, uses AWS data analytics and ML technologies, including Amazon SageMaker, to transform images and videos into actionable insights for diverse industries. The startup’s SamurAI computer vision solution on AWS is available on AWS Marketplace. “The launch of an AWS Region in Malaysia provides us with even lower latency to access key cloud services that power and scale our fast-growing AI vision platform in a data-compliant way,” said Lim Chee How, founder and CEO at Tapway. “We’re excited to see how AWS’s infrastructure investment in Malaysia will pave the way for Tapway to allow even more people to build, train, and deploy AI vision technology solutions quickly and affordably with their big data stored locally.”

Enabling Malaysia’s workforce

Since 2017, AWS Malaysia has trained over 100,000 individuals in Malaysia in cloud skills. AWS continues to invest in upskilling developers, students, and the next generation of IT leaders in Malaysia with sought-after cloud skills through AWS Skills to Jobs Tech Alliance and AWS Training & Certification programs like AWS Academy. AWS Academy provides higher education institutions around the world with a free, ready-to-teach cloud computing curriculum that prepares students for industry-recognized AWS Certifications and in-demand cloud jobs. AWS Academy currently runs courses in 49 universities in east and west Malaysia, including Asia Pacific University of Technology and Innovation (APU), Tunku Abdul Rahman University of Management and Technology (TAR UMT), and Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, that cover cloud foundations, cloud architecting, cloud operations, cloud developing, and data engineering, as well as specialty certifications related to machine learning, cyber security, and other domains. Since 2018, more than 25,000 students have been trained by the AWS Academy program.

In July 2024, AWS and PayNet announced Program AKAR, powered by AWS re/Start, a new cloud skills initiative in Malaysia that aims to bridge the growing skills gap in Malaysia’s digital economy. Program AKAR is the first financial services-focused cloud skills program that has been curated specifically for entry-level talent in Malaysia, and – through a 47-day training course culminating with the AWS Cloud Practitioner Certification – equips university students with transferrable skills that can be leveraged for careers in financial services. PayNet and AWS welcomed the first cohort of learners from Asia Pacific University in July 2024. These students will be given opportunities for internships with organizations across PayNet’s payments network upon completion of the program.

AWS is helping organizations such as PETRONAS accelerate their digital transformation through AWS Skills Guild, a consultative program that helps companies build an organization-wide cloud enablement initiative rooted in skills application and community development. PETRONAS is training their employees on cloud fundamentals through self-paced, online training courses.

Commitment to sustainability

Amazon is committed to becoming a more sustainable business and reaching net-zero carbon across its operations by 2040, 10 years ahead of the Paris Agreement, as part of The Climate Pledge. Amazon co-founded The Climate Pledge and became its first signatory in 2019. In December 2023, PKT Logistics Group became the first Malaysian signatory to The Climate Pledge.

In July 2024, Amazon announced it met its goal to match all of the electricity consumed across Amazon’s global operations—including its data centers, corporate buildings, grocery stores and fulfillment centers—with 100% renewable energy in 2023, seven years ahead of its original 2030 commitment. To get there, Amazon became the largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy in the world since 2020, and the solar and wind farms enabled by Amazon stimulated billions of dollars in estimated economic investment globally from 2014 through 2022. Additionally, AWS is committed to being water positive by 2030, returning more water to communities than it uses in its direct operations.

AWS is constantly working on ways to increase the energy efficiency of its data centers—optimizing data center design, investing in purpose-built chips, and innovating with new cooling technologies. A new report by Accenture, commissioned by AWS, estimates AWS’s infrastructure is up to 4.1 times more efficient than on-premises, and when workloads are optimized on AWS, the associated carbon footprint can be reduced by up to 99%. With the new AWS Asia Pacific (Malaysia) Region, customers will also benefit from AWS’s sustainability efforts across its infrastructure. For more information about AWS sustainability efforts, visit aws.amazon.com/about-aws/sustainability.

About Amazon Web Services

Since 2006, Amazon Web Services has been the world’s most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud. AWS has been continually expanding its services to support virtually any workload, and it now has more than 240 fully featured services for compute, storage, databases, networking, analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), mobile, security, hybrid, media, and application development, deployment, and management from 108 Availability Zones within 34 geographic regions, with announced plans for 18 more Availability Zones and six more AWS Regions in Mexico, New Zealand, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, Thailand, and the AWS European Sovereign Cloud. Millions of customers—including the fastest-growing startups, largest enterprises, and leading government agencies—trust AWS to power their infrastructure, become more agile, and lower costs. To learn more about AWS, visit aws.amazon.com.

About Amazon

Amazon is guided by four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking. Amazon strives to be Earth’s Most Customer-Centric Company, Earth’s Best Employer, and Earth’s Safest Place to Work. Customer reviews, 1-Click shopping, personalized recommendations, Prime, Fulfillment by Amazon, AWS, Kindle Direct Publishing, Kindle, Career Choice, Fire tablets, Fire TV, Amazon Echo, Alexa, Just Walk Out technology, Amazon Studios, and The Climate Pledge are some of the things pioneered by Amazon. For more information, visit amazon.com/about and follow @AmazonNews.

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FAQ

When did AWS launch its Asia Pacific (Malaysia) Region?

AWS launched its Asia Pacific (Malaysia) Region on February 8, 2024, as announced in the press release.

How much does AWS plan to invest in Malaysia through 2038?

AWS plans to invest an estimated $6.2 billion (approximately MYR 29.2 billion) in Malaysia through 2038.

How many Availability Zones does the new AWS Region in Malaysia have?

The AWS Asia Pacific (Malaysia) Region consists of three Availability Zones.

What is the estimated impact of the AWS Region on Malaysia's GDP?

The construction and operation of the new AWS Region is estimated to add approximately $12.1 billion (MYR 57.3 billion) to Malaysia's gross domestic product (GDP) through 2038.

How many individuals has AWS trained in cloud skills in Malaysia since 2017?

AWS has trained over 100,000 individuals in Malaysia in cloud skills since 2017.